The Salem City Council signed off on a zoning permit Monday allowing a local food pantry to use a city-owned property on Union Street.
The city offered a vacant building to the Salem/Roanoke County Food Pantry as the group was looking to move.
The nonprofit, which provided groceries for over 2,300 people last year, had a patron who for years offered it free use of its prior location on Chapman Street.
But that landlord eventually needed the space, said director Jenny McCormick, so the organization began seeking out a new headquarters.
Salem offered to let it take over a building at 915 Union St. that has been under city ownership since 1992.
The property is next to other city facilities and Moyer Skate Park. For years, it served as a local office for the Child Health Investment Partnership program.
The space recently became available, though, as the partnership consolidated its offices in Roanoke.
“We feel really lucky that the city stepped forward and offered us this place,” said McCormick, adding that the group is also grateful to its prior landlord for providing it a home for years.
The food pantry will pay rent on the city building via a sponsor who has agreed to handle the cost, city officials said.
The lease terms are still being finalized. The organization got the go-ahead to move in last month while those details are ironed out.
On Monday night, the city council formally approved a zoning permit for the operation. The permit authorized the food pantry as a “use not provided for” — a catch-all term for land uses not expressly addressed in local ordinances.
The permit was approved unanimously. A public hearing held immediately before the vote attracted no speakers.
The food pantry is open from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Mondays through Fridays.
In other action Monday night, the city council cast a required second and final vote approving a franchise agreement with Shentel.
Shentel, a Virginia telecommunication firm, will now be able to use city streets, utility poles and other rights of way to build a high-speed fiber optic network in Salem.
The network will support a new residential service, Glo Fiber, that Shentel is launching. The service will offer broadband internet, streaming cable television and home phone service.
The project was praised as a welcome addition by city leaders who have long hoped to see more competition in local broadband and cable markets.
Glo Fiber will be built in phases. Shentel said a detailed timeline is still being formed.
